FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 495 



but it must be done. Soon after planting I go over the rows with a two- 

 horse, eight-shovel corn cultivator, and then go over the rows with a hoe 

 every week, wet or dry. The runners should be trained to fill the space 

 between the hills and half way to the middle of the row. When winter sets 

 in and the ground is frozen so that it will bear up a team and wagon, cover 

 with old straw, or still better, wild slough hay. When growth commences 

 in the spring rake the mulch off the plants leaving it between the rows. It 

 will keep down the weeds, hold the moisture, and keep the fruit clean when 

 it rains. By following these directions you will succeed in having a good 

 crop. The strawberry is the first fruit to reach the table in the spring and 

 will last for about one month. They can be eaten three times a day and 

 ever be grateful and tempting to the appetite. A plant of such general 

 adaption, a fruit with such a fine flavor and so unusually relished ought to find 

 its way a into every garden on the farm. 



The next two rows I would plant raspberries. Mark out the rows 

 six feet apart and plant them three feet apart in the row, and about six 

 inches deep. 



I would plant one row of Alder and one of Kansas. The raspberries 

 must be cultivated and mulched with coarse manure. This will keep the 

 ground moist and clean . When the new shoots are eighteen or twenty 

 inches high pinch back . This will cause lateral branches to grow which in 

 August or September should be set in the ground for new plants, and by so 

 doing the canes are found not so liable to be injured by hard frost during 

 the winter. The lateral should in the spring be cut back to fourteen or 

 fifteen inches in length. 



Now I would mark out two rows six feet apart for currants and goose- 

 berries. Plant them three feet apart in the row. Of currants I would plant 

 Red Dutch or Victoria. Of gooseberries plant the Downing. The cur- 

 rants and gooseberries must be cultivated and kept free from weeds. For 

 the last few years we have been badly troubled with the currant worm. 

 Those can easily be kept off by dissolving one ounce of White Helle- 

 bore in three gallons of water and apply with a sprinkler two or three times 

 in the spring. This will generally keep them off. 



Now my farmer friend this is your fruit garden of small fruit, and by 

 taking good care of this garden you can have fresh fruit on the table for 

 over two months, and if you buy sugar your good wife will can the berries 

 and you will have plenty of fruit on the table the year round. 



WHY MANY FRUIT TREES HAVE BEEN UNPROFITABLE IN 



IOWA. 



Capt. R. P. Speer^ Before the Black Hawk County Farmers' Institute. 



1 have given special attention to the growing of fruit trees in nurseries 

 and orchards in Black Hawk county since 1865, and I have tested carefully 

 two hundred and thirty kinds of Russian apples; more than two hundred 

 varieties of the most premising American apples, besides many kinds of 

 pears, plums and cherries, etc. 



